Adding mSATA Functionality to a Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p Mini PC

[@mndlessdrwer]

It would be amazing to see a series of videos about adding functionality back to boards where the manufacturer has artificially restricted them. Wonderful work.

[@derekp9737]

agreed, all this planned obsolesence, and nerfed functionality is just hurting the consumers

[@juanboxplon]

Dude.. you need to do more of this videos. 6 month from the last video was a lot. Great content!

[@dosdude1]

I know, I've just been busy.

[@rkorkie]

@@dosdude1 busy doing Big Sur patches!!

[@jonathanwickham4882]

@@dosdude1 Do you do consulting work?

[@ChadLuciano]

Excellent and masterful modification and a true PC tech...this reminds me of the early 80's when lots of other skills and fortitude, techniques to be a successful IT professional and to truly build, service and repair....and in your case modify as well...I have two of these M93p's with the ports already and was curious when I came across your video...bravo and well done.

[@tcommonsense]

Awesome work mate! I'm glad to see people like you keep doing these awesome projects!

[@mndlessdrwer]

I love how this channel just disregards whether or not it makes sense to make these mods, but just rolls with it because "it's what I want to do". That really does make for the best kind of content. Because sinking the amount of time, money, and effort into this PC just to add mSATA doesn't make a whole lot of fiscal sense, but it's a really interesting project.

[@keithmckay-u6p]

these board level upgrade videos definitely make me comfortable doing this on some of my old tech that I can repurpose for other projects.

[@badkarma6789]

The legend is back!

[@Jofan614]

@Major Leonel imma use it

[@mohamedmimonasbai8563]

Collin, I love what you are doing now. Today is 2021 and we are reviewing everything for now.

[@TinCole]

Its 2022

[@swanee]

Thanks and amazing work! Have always wondered if this was possible after seeing these un populated headers on various motherboards.

[@johnmcook1]

This deserves way more views well done

[@brunodebattista3565]

The king is back! I got a bga station because of your vids. Just need to find a good source for bga cpus

[@cppctek]

im sooo glad i didnt unsubscribe to you bro. i thought you had abandoned the channel lol omg please please make more content man! this was awesome to watch!!!

[@tonyb7977]

Had that Chinese article in my bookmarks for a couple of years already, and now thanks to you I know for sure that it works. Got an M73p Tiny a few days ago specifically for this mod (same IS8XT motherboard, just a little cheaper than M93p). Also gonna do few expansion mods. I'm trying to stick a 4-port USB host controller inside (PCIe x1 via adapter, in place of WiFi card). Just a proof of concept for work. If I manage this, then I can dump a HDD caddy and stick it inside. If not, then I have a DVD expansion module which should theoretically have enough place inside to keep a stock USB2.0 hub and house my desktop USB card with PCIe x1 riser.

[@Shaddow798]

It would be neat to fit a 4 port nic to make a router or something

[@Interknetz]

Did you ever end up doing this? For what it's worth, there's an optional 2.0 port on the board that you can wire up to get power. The connector is a 1.25mm JST, same goes for the fan connector and very likely the others if its of any help to you.

[@tonyb7977]

@@Interknetz Yep. Ended up doing even more mods. My first board was a weird outlier(mSATA did not work even after flashing bios and EC firmware from another board), but I've decided to go all-in and bough a few more M83/93p mini PCs and it worked without a hitch. Ended up sticking a mini-PCIe USB host controller with a 90-degree adapter and a front-panel USB3 cable off a cheap chinese expansion bay thingy - this got me an extra pair of USB3.0 ports and allowed to have more than 10 USB devices total in the system. Added USB2.0 cable to that 5-pin connector(it won't work without shield connected to ground, btw). Also added u-blox GPS module in it (used a cheap MAX232 module for TTL conversion), though I had to de-solder an old connector and add a couple of jumpers in order to enable serial ports. I did a little writeup on Techpowerup with some pics awhile ago. Also got a full schematic for this board, which was surprisingly easy to find. It's a fun little project. Most of my M93p's went to work (used in cars for measuring/logging stuff), but I kept one for myself (i7-4790T/16GB RAM/256GB mSATA SSD and tons of modded trinkets). It's missing a top-cover, but an external DVD/USB enclosure does a good job of covering the internals. Just need to 3D-print a cool faceplate at some point.

[@Interknetz]

@@tonyb7977 Neat! Most I've done to mine is get a 4980HQ from taobao, cut a hole in the panel for a fan mod (works great), soldered a pwm connector to the original, and chucked in an RGB strip for the hell of it powered off the internal USB 2.0 connector. Potentially will be getting a 3d printed heatsink made to hopefully improve cooling with the shim and heatpipes i stuck together too. Which will lose me the speaker, but I noticed there's potential for a pcb mounted one to keep the BIOS beeps. Do you happen to know what the empty 3 spaces are for capacitors or whatever they're called are? Was always curious about those

[@manuel-xax]

IIRC, some (depending on installed cpu) of pretty little boxes can be turned into very fine HackMini :-) Impressive video by the way : nicely done.

[@flamingkillermc2806]

The real question is *Can you install macOS Catalina on it?*

[@dosdude1]

Definitely.

[@MrPnew1]

@@dosdude1 great job Collin. You love a challenge and we love watching you accept those challenges 😁

[@IAmZen_007]

No BigSur

[@nipembedded9976]

@@dosdude1 I would like to get in contact with you, how can I do that ? thanks

[@alexandrefauchon7755]

@@dosdude1 now that Big Sur is almost out, I can’t wait for your patcher for my 2012! Do you know when it’s gonna be out? Also make sure to put the donation link in your KZbin video so more people see it! What you do is better for the environment than anything Apple can do in their factory since I will be Able the keep my Mac for longer. Thanks man! Glad you’re there!

[@TurboBass]

I love these videos you do, these are excellent!

[@williamrogers5367]

Hi Colin, is there going to be a Big Sur patcher this year? Thanks a lot for your great work👍

[@m.t.lanimations9206]

It could happen, but it is extremely unlikely because there is no metal acceleration for older macs and it would run insanely slow. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

[@chaostoasty]

@@m.t.lanimations9206 and it wouldnt really make sense only doing it for the 2012

[@petersmith5199]

Very impressed with the first video I've watched of yours, very well done. I've subbed your channel. Thank you.

[@inhalants]

This is awesome, thanks for doing it. I have the same machine and to deal with the low power limits because of the 65w power supply, I got one of those haswell era mobile cpus that were converted to desktop form factors, and undervolted it. I'm getting desktopebel performance out of it. My end goal is to use the mini PCIe slot for a 4xsata breakout board so that I can use this to power a 4-drive RAID array. The standard internal sata connection will act as a 1tb ssd write cache, and then I'll use this MSATA port from your video for the OS drive. It's a pretty cool little machine with a lot of potential.

[@TheHatevessel]

Super cool, thanks for sharing. I just opened up one of these little guys and was curious enough to search youtube. Sure enough, here we are

[@MrBobWareham]

Thanks for the video, I am going to follow your video to do my Lenovo m93, so thanks for all the information, very helpful, and thanks for sharing your work. Bob in the UK

[@Pro_Droid]

We all want a Big Sur Patcher, what you do is just awesome! It will be exciting to see a 11 year old machine running OS 11.

[@Zebra_Paw]

He stopped making them. Although there is OpenCore Legacy Patcher and it works very well. I got a 2009 polycarbonate MacBook 6.1 to run it very well. Everything works and the OS is absolutely not too heavy for the machine. It will actually run KZbin in full HD fine, which you don’t get with this hardware under Windows.

[@reycontreras4656]

Wow magnificent work! Really cool

[@M0PGN-SP0VU]

you are the best of the best from the best!!!!!

[@MarcinPanawa]

An analogous situation is with the Lenovo Tiny m75q gen2 with missing one m2 port. What a pity. Thanks for the video. Great job!!

[@riffdex]

Yup I got a M710q that has the spot for a second M.2 but they never populated it 🙄

[@shaunbradford638]

Hey Colin are you making a patch for Big Sur

[@omarmahmoud9073]

Bro this guy deserves a ducking reward.

[@SkylarsTerribleMemes]

omg i've always wondered how hard it would be to add something if the pads are already there, this is amazing

[@moetarded7757]

Dude you a legend. Please make more videos. I don't care if you are spinning plates. lol You have saved me $k's of money and given me the confidence to do amazing things with my old computers. Lets see one on thunderbolt for cheeze graders. There are some on going issues with hot booting. But if you looked at it I am sure you could whip it. Ty

[@alexsinclair2012]

Really cool. I always thought of doing this to my Acer Aspire One ZG5

[@urdnal]

Just a heads up, dragging solder wick across pads like that is a surefire way to rip a pad or three off, sooner or later. Ask me how I know! I suspect PCB quality plays into it and these modern boards probably have better copper adhesion to the substrate compared to older boards, but still. I know it's tempting to drag that braid like you're cleaning it, it just feels right. But try to train yourself to repeatedly press and lift as you go along. Oh and thanks for this video. I noticed that blank msata area and wondered how involved it'd be to populate it.

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Great Video Collin I Have Missed Your Videos

[@markallen2536]

Can a wireless board still be added? Or is it one or the other?

[@P3Hi]

You can use both slots! I did this mod and 500GB mSATA worked without any smoke. Then after adding AX210HMW WiFi Card 6E I only needed to hack bios a bit so that it bypasses unauthorized PCI-e devices warning.

[@markallen2536]

@@P3Hi I went with the M700 tiny instead. Better CPU and the second socket is already there...

[@billyoldham8894]

THIS WAS VERY HELPFUL THANK YOU

[@danielbrm4766]

Excellent job

[@technotrance011]

Awesome effort. nice work. who doesnt have the guts to do this. we now have msata to sata adapter 😁

[@Constantinus_Apollyon]

And you sir just won a new subscriber . Job wel done 😊

[@terrytaylor342]

Great to see you back

[@qiulinluan201]

install macos big sur on unsupport apple when can make it?

[@retrogaminggenesis6102]

I have a ThinkCentre M83 with the contact points for a PCI port, could I soldier that?

[@dosdude1]

Most likely, there are probably other components that need to be added as well, like in this instance.

[@udavid1507]

I was thinking about that too, but finally got it working with a Mini PCIe to SATA connector plugged into the "Wifi" slot. Works like a charm in my M92p Tiny. A Mini PCIe to USB3 does also work btw. You can find them on eBay "Mini PCIe PCI-Express SATA" for couple of bucks. Love your work btw. Thumbs up

[@tnaxpw]

Ayy thanks for the info, was looking around to buy one from Aliexpres for $7 or w/e they are.

[@brainlessdude]

Could you maybe send a link of the specific adapter you bought?

[@tnaxpw]

@@brainlessdude Can't send links through comments, just search as what he written, there are plenty of those 2x sata boards, all probably on the same chip so it does not really matter.

[@luigiprovencher]

I think that I just saw you in a forum talking about the bios. Lol Can't be that many people out there that have added mSATA support to their machines.

[@elfondo5291]

you're an actual master

[@derekp9737]

relly great job there!!! Thank you for sharing. ...would this applie to the m73 boards as well?

[@oantalaroan]

Wow! Amazing tricks. Great skills, too.

[@khoonkeat]

Great video! Question: did heard you mentioned that slot for the wifi card could be your next project. Is it possible to use it for the mSATA storage card?

[@McCuneWindandSolar]

So I wonder what that would make that now or what revision would it now be now it has the Msata slot.

[@Madhawa333]

Legend and the super hero of next generation

[@dominikschutz6300]

Very impressive modification :) I like red LEDs :)

[@LazloNQ]

I spent forever trying to figure out how to get mine to boot from the m.2 sata drive. As it turns out, it's actually a setting in the BIOS! If you go over to the right side of the boot order BIOS page, it plainly says type 'x' to toggle a device in or out of the boot order. It was that simple and I didn't realize you could change this. I just did the change, it boots from the msata drive perfectly. I expose my shame here lest it can help someone hide theirs.

[@Zinidia]

Hey, are you posting macos big sur on your site soon?

[@musiclyrics149]

Can you please made a Big Sur Patcher???

[@rytergeorg]

hi Collin ... could you make a better boardmap of which component goes where ... by chance i got myself an identical model and with all the additional parts at hand i would like to try doing it myself, but the images from the blog are somewhat blurry and hard to read ... cheers

[@ИванСнежков-з9й]

I think you should solder the electrolyte capacitor last, after the connector. This way it won't be in the way and there won't be any danger of been damaged by heat when soldering the connector, especially if hot-air is been used. Of course, the pass-through holes should be cleared in advance, they can remain as step 1.

[@dosdude1]

Yeah, I realized that when soldering the connector on.

[@edretrotech7559]

Very cool video, Colin! I have a hackintosh running as my home file server in the same M93p. It is a nice little computer, even better when running MacOS:)

[@dosdude1]

I installed Catalina on it, with the mSATA SSD and mod shown in the video. It works great!

[@TheChiudikas]

@@dosdude1 you dont have to mod anything, just use pcie slot and boot from it with clover or opencore, whichever bootloader you're using. That way you can even boot windows from pcie ssd.

[@darkegress4392]

Impressive and educational.

[@JulesArchinova]

At around 22 minutes, I don't understand how you get all the joint clean, without them shorting each other

[@zenospeed_345]

Are you going to make Monterey Patcher soon for macOS 12?

[@genersegovia2616]

excelente aporte .... podrías compartirme donde conseguiste los componentes, así como los valores de las resistencias. Muchas gracias por leerme.

[@ventura5072]

Nice video I would like to know how much you charge to do this job

[@cjjmpgjjl113]

Is the displayport still functional after the upgrade? 🙄 I see somebody said the displayport on back got useless after this upgrade on a Chinese forum. I also found a "modified" bios image that was claimed can fix this, but I've not test it yet.

[@xhobv02]

Hi, May I ask you for a link with modified bios ? I lost few hours with this display port issue :)

[@Interknetz]

@@xhobv02 You might have to request it somewhere like bios mods potentially. However if it's of any help it might come back with removing the whitelist check (i.e using an AX210 wlan card). This is easily done by updating the BIOS and setting the serial and model number to INVALID (the caps matter i think?). Note: I have no idea if you can revert back to the original by entering the original serial and model numbers, but I'd imagine you can since it's something you can change for whatever reason. I can't test this myself as I haven't done the mod, but if losing that functionality requires a modded bios then I might forgo doing it.

[@kangrangi]

I want to make a patch for the big ser update.~~

[@onkartambe3350]

Hie, is there any other option other than the one you mentioned in the video to add another port sata/msata. I’m not an experienced person to deal with soldering the ports and all.

[@123JAILBREAKME]

Great video fo have a link for that small adapter for the ssd?

[@johnross8939]

Collin, what is the difference in a M93 and a M93p?

[@mazunte5930]

WoW great Job! Very very nice ;-)

[@the.real.ipatch]

is the buzzing sound in the background from the ballast for your soldering iron?

[@dosdude1]

No; it's my hot air station.

[@betonaruto6763]

@dosdude1 MacOs Big Sur patcher??

[@softuniverse7771]

great hack! can the 2nd NVMe slot on the bottom of the 710q/720q boards be enabled in a similar fashion?

[@P3Hi]

I went nuts while soldering them little fuckers 😆 But in the end all good. My 500GB mSATA works just fine! Thanks for video coverage, it helped me a lot!

[@monkeylate2341]

hi this is amazing, i have a question are the SSD/HDD 2.5 still work after instal MSATA ? (to add more capacity)

[@dosdude1]

Yes, both drives are usable.

[@nazthelizard122]

Do you offer motherboard repair?

[@GWOPPGETTER]

Your a legend.

[@carlymontagne4142]

Are you doing big sur release for unsupported macs? mine was just barely too old for the update

[@luigiprovencher]

Is there a standoff for the mSata that you can get so that you can screw it down instead of it just being held there by a tab? For easy installation and removal purposes.

[@seyisland]

Amazing and well done job. I have the same M93p, but I am having High CPU temps on the same 4570T, do you recommend delid, or had any problem like that? Cheers

[@Interknetz]

Temps will be about 80c under full load. These cool pretty poorly unless you're prepared to do some modifications to the case. I've done this myself (twice) if you're interested in the process.

[@jesterace666]

I've just done this mod on a m83 tiny and got the dreaded extra sata ports in the bios. Components are all in perfectly. I'm now wondering whether to try flashing a bios/ec dump from some other tiny because it sounds like some weird bios/ec/firmware issue. I also got another weird effect. I now get an NEC boot logo instead of Lenovo. Was you first/second tiny that worked an m83? Would you be prepared to upload a dump for me to try?

[@McCuneWindandSolar]

how about adding a Wifi card, that is not Lenovo branded or approved. Since you have to find a Wife card that is approved by the bios.

[@playbookshowme484]

great work

[@David_Phantom]

I assume this will be hackintoshed in the future. Will you make a video of that? I'd love to see it!

[@ttv_highping553]

very nice :) good job

[@tomcat2512]

Hi there! Thanks for this wonderful video, it's very informative. I have M93P the same as yours and have noticed that the MSATA port is missing. Initially, I thought of just soldering the port will suffice to make it work. But looking at the video I find it very complicated and challenging as I'm a novice in soldering electrical components. I checked out the parts needed and it's really very tiny. But before I attempt to do it, I'd like to ask the following questions from you. 1. What is the maximum allowed SSD capacity of the board that will accommodate using MSATA? 2. Does these micro parts have polarity? I'm afraid that I may damage the board if I install the parts incorrectly. 3. What's the worse scenario that could happen to the board if I installed it incorrectly? 4. I noticed the number of items you listed in the Mouser Electronics contains more than what is required, did you increase it in case you have misplaced some parts? 5. Where can I find the detailed instructions in English? I hope you find time to answer. Thank you!

[@dosdude1]

Any mSATA SSD will work, size does not matter. None of the small parts have polarity, and the mosfets can only go on one way, as they have 3 pins. The larger electrolytic capacitor is polarized. Damage to the board depends on how bad of mistakes are made. Most likely it will not harm anything unless existing components on the board get damaged or knocked off. I always order more parts than required in case some get lost. I am unaware of any English guide on doing this, other than this video.

[@tomcat2512]

@@dosdude1 Hey! That was fast! Thank you once again for your reply. I will update you as soon I bought the components and have started doing with your video guide.👍

[@denisovanhybrid9610]

@@tomcat2512 how did you go?

[@iCach0]

Hey, I tried this and my computer now doesn't even power on. Any idea where I should start troubleshooting?

[@MikeG-js1jt]

Do you recall they type of ram this device uses? I assume it's some sort of sodimm? ... maybe ddr3 1666/1333 ?

[@kanglinyao]

Is the dispalyport working after the mod?

[@dosdude1]

@@kanglinyao Yes.

[@josipbilic6171]

I would love the similar guide for dell Optiplex 3020m...

[@Thinkgroupy]

Bro where is macos big sur patcher???? Waiting for it

[@eduardowatkinz]

Excellent....

[@EndIsh3r3]

can you make Big Sur patcher please?

[@Madhawa333]

You are the generation Robin Hood man

[@NRH_Wx]

Are you offering a service to add this? I have a m73 I would love to add this to.

[@dosdude1]

I definitely could, I'd probably do it for $100 plus the cost of return shipping.

[@NRH_Wx]

@@dosdude1 PM me and let me know

[@dosdude1]

@@NRH_Wx KZbin doesn't have PMs anymore, but you can email me at [e-mail].

[@knarlydark5960]

How do you fix a computer that boots up normally but after sometime it will glitches and have lines scattered through the whole screen then shuts down after that?

[@johnr.1944]

Hey, DOSDude! I watch your videos and am inspired by a lot you do! I was hoping you could help me out with a Mac Pro issue I have. I have a Mac Pro 1,1 that was working well with via El Capitan, until an update(?) made it crash and wont boot up anymore. I've done it all, trust me. Do you think I should just re-solder a new EFI chip? Thanks!

[@dosdude1]

You need to re-install El Capitan, and do NOT install that update.

[@johnr.1944]

@@dosdude1 The problem with that is, I've tried the original booting ssd, a different one, and a bootable usb device, and the mac refuses to boot into anything. It just restarts, sadly. Making believe it's the EFI chip.

[@Zebra_Paw]

It’s possible. You could still try some custom EFI boot picker.

[@Celeron_619]

10% of everyone: Nice job on this project :D Everyone else: Big Sur patch??

[@canchume]

hey dosdude one quick question does the apfs patcher works on the mac mini 2009 ? i have one running your patcher with catalina and works pretty good

[@battyroshko1431]

Is it a good idea to build a Xeon-based Big Sur hackintosh (HP WS Z420) and what graphics card/s should i use? From what i know you won’t be making a Big Sur patcher due to graphics incompatibilities with older macs, so my 2010 Unibody MacBook will turn into a Windows only machine in a year or two. The video is great, it always drives me absolutely nuts when i see a motherboard with only the empty space for a mSATA, NVMe or a PCIe slot without an actual slot soldered on.

[@therealfirstone]

Yo have my full respect.

[@NajipAliMunajat]

Mad scientist is at it again!

[@carlosperezjr77]

Looking forward to the OSX Big Sur magic installer

[@adamrosas]

I just completed this mod on a Lenovo M73 tiny, that through hole capacitor was a PITA. but the mod worked perfectly. Anybody know where to source the plastic stand off to hold the MSATA card in place?

[@axelkontio5943]

Hi is the instructions the same for the m73 model? i have the same and want to do this mod too :)

[@adamrosas]

@@axelkontio5943 yep exactly the same.

[@axelkontio5943]

@@adamrosas Great. Thanks

[@LazloNQ]

After 8 hours of searching on digi-key I found the part. It's not perfect perfect, but it holds my msata drive in just fine: Manufacturer part number 27mmp003 and got mine from digikey. I know it's 3 years ago you asked, but here I am. Made by Essentra.